Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash drive that can be obtained here. (The flash drive includes the anti-fascist books avail­able on this site.)

COMMENT: The Orwellian tinge to the coverage of the Ukrainian coup has masked the nature of the militant vanguard and core of the movement–Swoboda [“Svoboda”], Pravy Sektor and other, lesser-known elements allied with them.

These groups are fascist in nature, with a heritage stretching back to the Third Reich’s OUN/B allies, perpetuated in the post-World War II period by elements of CIA, MI6 BND and organizations like the Anti-Bolshevik of Nations. All of these groups are ultimately, beholden to, and allied with the Underground Reich.

We have covered this in previous posts–here, here, here and here. (We are producing programs about the Ukrainian crisis at the present time.)

Two recent posts from the International Business Times illustrate and define what might be termed “the ideological/political bouquet” of the opposition forces that ousted Yanukovych (who, like most of the leaders who have come to power in the former Soviet republics and a plethora of leaders elsewhate, was manifestly incompetent and corrupt.)

Writer Palosh Ghosh notes that Swoboda–the largest of these groups–has generated considerable gravitas from young, educated Ukrainians who are disgusted with the moribund economy. Historically, economic deprivation has lent popular support to the ranks of fascist organizations.

Swoboda parliamentarian Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn has quoted Third Reich luminaries such as Joseph Goebbels, Gregor Strasser and Ernst Rohm in his political speeches, and the deputy chief of Swoboda, Ihor Mirosh­ny­chenko, has termed Ukrainian-born actress Mila Kunis “a dirty Jewess.”

Nice.

In an update, “Pterrafractyl” informs us that the chief prosecutor in the new interim Ukrainian government is a member of Swoboda.

The popular chants of the Euromaidan demonstrators are those of the OUN/B.

EXCERPT: . . . .However, despite its extremist rhetoric, Svoboda cannot be called a “fringe” party – indeed, it currently occupies 36 seats in the 450-member Ukrainian parliament, granting it status as the fourth-largest party in the country. Further, Svoboda is linked to other far-right groups across Europe through its membership in the Alliance of European National Movements, which includes the British National Party (BNP) of the United Kingdom and Jobbik, the neo-fascist, anti-Semitic and anti-Roma party of Hungary. The leader of Svoboda, Oleh Tyahnybok, who has appeared at the Kiev protests, has a long history of making inflammatory anti-Semitic statements, including the accusation during a 2004 speech before parliament that Ukraine is controlled by a “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.” [Swoboda Member of Parliament Ihor] Miroshnychenko also called the Ukrainian-born American film actress Mila Kunis a “dirty Jewess.”

Tyahnybok has also claimed that “organized Jewry” dominate Ukrainian media and government, have enriched themselves through criminal activities and plan to engineer a “genocide” upon the Christian Ukrainian population. Another top Svoboda member, Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn, a deputy in parliament, often quotes Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, as well as other Third Reich luminaries like Ernst Rohm and Gregor Strasser. . . .

. . . . Founded in 1991 as the Social-National Party of Ukraine, Svoboda has apparently appealed to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians tired of economic woes and rampant corruption in government. Reports also suggest that the party has derived significant support from the well educated and the young, who suffer from high unemployment. . . . .

After months of mass unrest in Ukraine, cul­mi­nat­ing in deadly vio­lence and the removal of the elected Pres­i­dent, Vik­tor Yanukovych, we look at some of the key play­ers emerging.

The mem­bers of the new gov­ern­ment have to be approved by parliament.

Olek­sander Turchynov, interim president

Pro­pelled to the top by the col­lapse of the Yanukovych admin­is­tra­tion, the new par­lia­men­tary speaker and act­ing pres­i­dent is con­sid­ered the right-hand man of Yulia Tymoshenko, who was Mr Yanukovych’s arch-rival at the 2010 pres­i­den­tial election.

An impor­tant fig­ure in the 2004 Orange Rev­o­lu­tion, the 49-year-old briefly served as head of the domes­tic secu­rity agency, the SBU, then as a deputy prime minister.

While he may enjoy cred­i­bil­ity with some pro­test­ers — he was injured in the face by shrap­nel dur­ing the vio­lence in Kiev this win­ter — he appears to lack charisma and is not ulti­mately seen as a pres­i­den­tial candidate.

…

Oleh Makhnit­skyy, act­ing chief prosecutor

The 43-year-old mem­ber of the far-right Svo­boda party was lit­tle known on the national polit­i­cal scene before his appoint­ment by parliament.

A lawyer from Lviv, he worked as an inves­ti­ga­tor with a local prosecutor’s office in the late 1990s before mov­ing into politics.

EXCERPT: . . . . Svoboda is the most visible party on the square, it has essentially taken over Kiev City Hall as its base of operations, and it has a large influence in the protestors’ security forces.

It also has revived three slogans originating in the Ukrainian nationalist movement of the 1930s [i.e. the OUN/B–D.E.] that have become the most popular chants at Euromaidan. Almost all speakers on Independence Square—even boxer-turned-opposition-leader Vitaly Klitschko, who has lived mostly in Germany and has a US residence permit—start and end with the slogan, “Glory to Ukraine!,” to which the crowd responds “To heroes glory!” Two other nationalist call-and-response slogans often heard on the square are “Glory to the nation! Death to enemies!” and “Ukraine above all!” . . .

Discussion

One comment for “The Ideology and Electoral Gravitas of Swoboda (Ukrainian Heirs to the OUN/B)”

Daily Beast
02.28.14Neo-Nazis Pour Into Kiev
A stream of European jihadists have traveled to Syria to wage holy war. Now a group of European neo-Nazis are traveling to Ukraine to save the white race

By Michael Moynihan

In early February, Fredrik Hagberg stood at the rostrum in Kiev’s City Hall, offering fraternal and comradely greetings from Sweden to the sweaty, bruised, and exhausted Ukrainian insurrectionists scattered throughout. The place was festooned with flags—some celtic crosses, a stray Confederate banner, a standard for the political party Svoboda, whose members essentially controlled the building—reflecting the dubious politics of its occupiers.

Revolutionary tourists, thrill seekers, and parachute journalists suffused Kiev. Sen. John McCain, actress Hayden Panettiere, and French intellectual Bernard Henri-Levy roused massive crowds with paeans to freedom and national sovereignty, while offering moral support to the opposition forces led by former boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko.

But Hagberg, a square-jawed and baby-faced member of the Swedish armed forces, had a darker message.

“I stand before your forces of revolution to tell you about what your future might be if you fail your glorious endeavour,” he said in fluid-but-clipped English. “I stand here as a Swede. However where I come from is no longer Sweden.” Hagberg warned Ukrainians that a successful revolution must chart a path that carefully avoided the evils of abortion and ethnic mongrelization, one that harshly punished welfare abuse and rejected the normalization of homosexuality. “Officials in Sweden like to calls us the most modern country in the world. I say to you, brothers, this is what awaits you if you choose to follow our example. You now have the opportunity to choose and create your own future. Do not accept the trap of choosing either the West or Russia.”

It’s unclear who, if anyone, invited him, but Hagberg was speaking as a representative of Nordisk Ungdom (Nordic Youth), a Swedish neo-Nazi group that celebrates “a traditional ideal of a better man, striving for something greater and more noble than his own personal benefit; an idealistic man who fights for Europe’s freedom.” Visitors to the group’s English-language website are met with with a Barbara Kruger-like advertisement beseeching visitors to “help us to help the revolution! Support a free Ukraine! Donate Now…” Because Hagberg is trying to provoke his fellow neo-Nazis into travelling to Kiev to help shape a new, fascist-friendly Ukraine.

Amongst the fascists, ultra-nationalists, and racists in Europe, there has been much griping that the revolt in Ukraine has been overtaken, if not controlled from the outset, by “CIA/ZOG [Zionist Occupied Government]/Soros-sponsored” forces. The Euroscepticism of the continent’s far-right movements has produced a skepticism of the uprising’s much-discussed Europhile mainstream.

But Pro-Yanukovych forces and the former president’s Kremlin allies have heavily promoted an alternative narrative—one that Hagberg and his allies happily embrace—suggesting that the protest movement is in fact honeycombed with dangerous neo-Nazis affiliated with the extremist Ukrainian political parties Svoboda and Right Sector. Therefore, Western supporters of the protests, like John Mccain, are agitating on behalf of violent Ukrainian fascism.

It’s a modified version of the Kremlin’s argument against Western support for Syrian rebel groups, which it says has amounted to material support for al-Qaeda-sponsered terrorism. And like with Syria—and the Spanish Civil War before it—sympathetic European extremists are travelling to provide support to their ideological brethren.

“We just got boots on the ground and are discussing with Svoboda representatives and other nationalists what we can assist with,” Magnus Söderman, the neo-Nazi organizer of the Swedish Ukraine Volunteers (Svenska Ukrainafrivilliga), told me. “Our message to them is that we will assist with whatever; clearing the streets, security, making food.”

On the group’s website, stuffed with hackneyed neo-Nazi propaganda, potential volunteers are told that “we do not organize any paramilitary force because our involvement is of a civil nature, as aid workers. Of course, should violence break out we will make use of our right of self-defense.” (The site advises recruits to “improve your physical fitness” before travelling to Kiev.) Ukraine, the group says, is facing an existential threat and “we must secure the existence of our people and the future of our white children!”

According to the group’s newly constituted Facebook page, a representative of the Swedish Ukraine Volunteers recently “visited the parliament and established ??important contacts” amongst local politicians, presumably those affiliated with ultra-nationalist parties Svoboda and Right Sector. The idea of foreign volunteers is “a good initiative,” said one member of a fascist message board in Sweden, “and I give my full support to Mikael Skillt and other party comrades who are travelling down to help our brothers in the east.”

Mikael Skillt is well-known in Swedish neo-Nazi circles. A spokesman for the vigilante group Stop the Pedophiles and a veteran of various now-defunct fascist organizations, Skillt is currently affiliated with the Party of the Swedes (SvP), a neo-Nazi group founded by members of the less camera-friendly National Socialist Front. According to its website, SvP “has good contact with [Svoboda] who were guests at our conference Vision Europe just under a year ago.”

When I contacted Skillt he was in Moscow, on his way to agitating in Kiev. So why does Ukraine need a fascist international brigade? “We are scanning the needs of the Ukrainians, but we will be offering [them] our help in whatever they need,” he told me. “We have members with experience in most fields, ranging from military to truck drivers to journalists.”

When I asked if he had canvassed the opinions of Russian neo-Nazi groups while in Moscow, Skillt told me, with predictable obliqueness, that he had “heard some [Russian] nationalists who have spoken of a revolution inspired by Ukraine.”

So how large is the international brigade of ultra-nationalists? A European journalist who follows the movement of European jihadists to Syria—and now fascists migrating towards Kiev—told me that there was indeed scattered evidence that neo-Nazi groups outside Sweden were making pilgrimages to Ukraine. When I asked Magnus Söderman if there was a network of other Nazis on the ground, he told me that “comrades from other European countries are also preparing to assist if it is needed.”